Nocturnio (15.10.9973 AS)
Today was the day of the mock exam. As usual Tristan had spent most of his time in his laboratory experimenting with magic circles. Unlike usual, he was making progress in his quest to create an instant long range communication item. Since he had discovered the main mistake he had been doing all this time his work had become so much easier.
He had already gone so far as to enchant the test item successfully with his very own enchantment. Although, it was painful for him having to create incomplete magic circles, he evaluated the results higher than his perfectionism.
Tristan was sitting alone in front of the training room. He was waiting for Laura to be done with her exams. It was already noon. He was the last, who would take the mock exam, because Miss Doctri had decided to start with the oldest first and end with the youngest student.
The Exams had started in the morning. Everybody who was done with the exam could go home to relax till the next week. Leo, Seria, Richard and Annemarie were already done with their exams and had decided to go to ‘Mitternacht’ to celebrate with a gigantic piece of cake.
Abigail was also done with her exam. She wished Laura luck and went home; sure to have aced the test she had just taken.
So Tristan was sitting all by himself. He didn’t really care much about it. One could say he was happy, to be left alone. He spent his time waiting, to go over what kind of spell would be the most effective for the long ranged instant communication device he was developing.
Many people would be nervous because of the exam. Tristan wasn’t one of them. He never had had trouble with any exams during his whole life. Once he had been excited when his knowledge was about to be tested, but not anymore. He had come to the realization that those exams would never challenge him. And the only challenges he would receive would be coming from Tristan himself or that woman; Bella.
One hour after Laura had gone into the room, she came out. She looked as nervous as she had looked like when she went into the examination room. “How was it?” Tristan asked, knowing already what she would say, just to later find out she had aced the test. “Awful! If you ever wondered how torture feels like, just go in.” Suddenly, Laura’s facial expression changed. “Sorry, I forgot you still have to take it!” She said with an apologetic voice. “Don’t mind me. I’m gonna ace that test!” Tristan smiled at her. “Good attitude! I’ll be waiting here. Good luck!” Larua smiled back at Tristan.
Tristan was greeted by Miss Doctri as he entered the room. “Well, Tristan it seems like you are the last one. Are you feeling all right? We don’t want to repeat last week’s incident, do we?” –“I’m fine, and ready to start.” –“Very well, then could tell me what the ‘Great War’ is?”
“The ‘Great War’ is seen by many as the reason why Fors was obligated to separate the continents. The war broke out a little bit more than ten thousand years ago. We Demons don’t really know why. 100 years before the continental separation a horde Seraph attacked our temples claiming that our deity Permix had killed their deity Alexa.
Obviously the clan heads of that time decided to counter attack by burning down Alexa’s temples. The Seraphs saw that as a reason to start a straight out war with us. They accused us of wanting to take over all three continents in the name of our power hungry god.
They reproached wanting to take over the Humans while playing their friends. They even convinced some Elders from that idea which lead to a civil war in the Human continent.
For over a century, both sides fought taking heavy losses on both sides.
The population of Umbra was reduced by 30%, southern cities like Nocturnio and Ater were decimated to ash. This indicates that the Seraph’s armies didn’t advance far into Umbra. Since they were coming from the south and they just managed to take our southern most cities in the beginnings of the war.
37% of the population of Lunae including the main branch of their royal family were killed. By the end of the war, their capital Lux was completely destroyed. This shows how lucky the Seraphs were when Fors forcefully ended the war. If we had had a century or two more to fight, we might have exterminated their race.
Since the biggest part of the war was neither fought on Lunae nor Umbra, the greatest destruction was caused in Terra. Over 70% of the Human population were killed during the ‘Great War’. They died in the civil war incited by the seraphs and us or they were caught in cross fires between us and the birdies.
Obviously Fors wasn’t happy about us bringing his race close to extermination. So he sent us and the Seraphs to other dimensions and deleted the memories of all Humans, letting them forget about the other two races.
He gave us harsh restrictions about interacting with humans. For example, neither Seraphs nor Demons are allowed to use magic stronger than ‘Super Devil’ tier, which is the strongest type of magic Elders can use. We also can’t have more than ten thousand people in Terra at the same time. He even gave the seraphs the task to supervise our action in Terra. If they see anything they don’t like they are allowed to intervene with us.
The Seraphs openly have used those rights to pay us back for their losses, they bore in the war. Obviously we are allowed to fight them back in a manner we don’t interfere with the ‘tier five rule’ already explained earlier.
That’s the reason why we still need a standing army. One could even say the ‘Great war’ never ended. The war continues, just in a smaller scale after the intervention of Fors. For ten thousand years we have been fighting the seraphs. Every day there are small skirmishes between our soldiers in Terra and their soldiers.” Tristan ended his explanation of the Term.
“Very well done, great explanation!” Miss Doctri clapped her hands. “You should keep up with your hard work. Now then, let’s move over to the practical part of the exam. What are the three spells you practiced to from the book you chose for your catalyst training?” –“I practiced all the spells in the book.” –“No, I mean the ones you chose to learn in preparation of the exam.” –“That’s what I mean I learned all spells in the book.” As soon as he had said that Tristan realized he had made a big mistake, while Miss Doctri just looked at him dumbfounded. “Okay” She clapped her hands “Can you activate your ‘clone’ spell?”
Tristan nodded and rolled up his sleeves. A thick silver bracelet with three big red stones appeared on his right arm. Tristan touched the stones of the bracelets with his left hand and began casting the spell. The bracelet started to glow and a second Tristan appeared out of thin air.
The clone smiled and waved at the stunned Miss Doctri. “Wha… What...was that?” she was speechless. “That didn’t look like the spell you were supposed to learn. That spell was at least on the level of a ‘High Dragon’! But how you were supposed to learn ‘Low Demon’ magic and not Dragon level magic!”
She was right. The spell Tristan had to learn was one of the lowest level illusion magic. All it was supposed to do was to mimic everything the caster did like a mirror. The first ‘Clone’ spells that could move on their own were found with the MR of ‘High Dragon’.
Miss Doctri was staring at Tristan expecting a satisfying answer to the question he had asked earlier. Tristan was confused. Why was she making such a big fuss because of his ‘decoy’? “I… I just did cast the spell from the book I promise” Tristan said shyly.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Nonsense! You can tell that to your classmates, but you can’t fool me. That wasn’t the spell from the book!” Miss Doctri was getting impatient. “Who taught you that spell? Who was so careless to teach a five year old a ‘Dragon’ level spell?” –“No one did. I promise I just did cast the very same spell from the book.” Tristan insisted with and innocent tone. “I just thought it was incomplete and added some extras.” Tristan continued after sensing Miss Doctri would ask more questions.
After a few seconds deep in thoughts, she asked “And I’m supposed to believe you that?” –“Well, yes” –“Care to test it out? If you can really level up spell you pass. If you can’t, I will have to have a long talk with your mother.”
Tristan felt like he had fucked up too often this afternoon. And both of the options were bad from his point of view. The first was: letting his true strength get discovered. The other was: getting his freedom, robbed by Nana as a punishment. The only thing Tristan could do right now was to let his passive decide what to do next.
“Ok, I will improve a spell right in front of you. But please promise me not to go around telling people about this ability of mine.” –“I promise, so how much time do you need to level up a spell?” –“I’m not leveling it up I’m just improving it.” Tristan was now seriously getting annoyed.
Miss Doctri gave him the ‘Low Demon’ level light spell ‘flashlight’. It was supposed to summon a light ball that would follow one’s hand movements.
Tristan read through the description of the spell and tried to cast it once. Since it was a very low tier spell it worked without any problems. While casting he had memorized how the magic circle looked like.
There were quite a few things to improve on. Tristan decided to start with the brightness and the size of the light ball. He did cast the spell another time. This time the light ball was half as big as the one he had cast before and ten times brighter. For Miss Doctri couldn’t believe her eyes. The boy had only cast the spell one time before coming up with ways to improve it.
But Tristan wasn’t done yet. Now he concentrated his attention to the movement function of the flashlight. He deleted some useless information in the magic circle and added some new commands.
Once again, his left hand wandered over his bracelet and he started to visualize the new magic circle. The gemstone inside the bracelet glowed in bright red and a small, bright light ball appeared out of thin air. The floating ball started to move around the flabbergasted Miss Doctri.
“How are you controlling it?” Miss Doctri wondered. “With my mind obviously.” The annoyance in Tristan’s voice, was easy to pick up. Miss Doctri though, didn’t mind it. She had never seen someone level up a spell in less than fifteen minutes. She was so shocked she didn’t care about small details.
“How did you make that?” –“That’s classified” Tristan smiled at her. “Do I pass the test now?” Although, Miss Doctri had so many question she had the feeling she wouldn’t get any answers from Tristan anytime soon so she gave up. “Yes, you pass.” –“Is there anything else to the test?” – “No you, you can just go home for now” Miss Doctri gave an absent-minded response. “Please don’t forget about the promise!” Tristan reminded. “Yeah, my lips are sealed.” She waved with her hands.
Nocturnio (18.10.9973 AS)
Tristan had spent his whole weekend in his laboratory researching ways to create an instant communication item. He had finally reached the stage where he had a comparable item to the one he had stolen from the academy. But it still wasn’t flawless. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find ways to widen the range of his item beyond five kilometers. There was also the issue of the information loss the grater the distance between the items was.
Thinking about the new wall he had hit with his item Tristan sighed. “What’s wrong? Nervous because of the test results?” Laura asked him. Both of them had been on their way to school like every morning. “Because I can tell you, I am really nervous.” She showed him her trembling hands. “Not really, it’s just because the weekend is already over.”
“Are you one of those people? I thought you were someone that loves coming to school just like m-” Laura suddenly stopped and pointed at a crowd standing behind the main entrance of the academy.
“The test results are out! They published them on that board behind the main entrance, for everybody to see! Why would they do something so cruel? It’s just like a public execution.” -“Calm down and come on let’s go take a look!” Tristan took her by the hand dragged her along with him.
As they were getting closer to the board Tristan noticed the stares of the students standing in front of the board. They even went so far as to open a path for him and Laura to pass through crowd.
The only person who didn’t notice them was Abigail. She was just standing in front of the board staring at it.
Tristan did let go of Laura’s hands and started to look after his and Laura’s name. “Congratulations!" a male voice said. “For what?” Tristan turned around and found Ernesti bowing to him. “You haven’t found your name yet? You should look for the first place.” Ernesti pointed towards the top of the board.
Indeed, on top of all names there was his name written on it. “Looks like your class did the best in the mock exams.” Ernesti remarked. Tristan stared at the top ten. There was no mistake he was listed as first.
Rank
Name
Points
Class
1
Tristan Halblicht
100
7
2
Laura Verheerung
99,5
7
3
Abigail Letum
99
7
4
Annemarie Explo
98,5
7
5
Leo Luci
96,5
7
6
Seira Lucifer
96
7
-
Richard Lucifer
96
7
8
Ernesti Tod
90
5
9
Oriana Cassio
89,5
2
-
Annie Kuro
89,5
4
Ernesti turned around towards his sister “Hey sis, congrats!” He only got a resentful glare from Abigail. “There is nothing to congratulate me about, I didn’t make first place. So leave me alone” She pointed at Tristan. “I will get you next time no matter what” Before charging towards the library.
Still followed by stares of the other students Tristan and Laura marched towards their classroom. They took their places and started to chat before the class started. “Congratulations, you made it big this time” Annemarie said with a sharp voice. “Where is the other brat you always hang out with? Did she go missing” She laughed. “That’s none of your business.” Tristan retorted.
“Come on, where is she? I would love to see her face after her grandiose defeat.” Annemarie continued to mock them. “I said it’s none of your business!” Tristan shouted annoyed. “Come on, don’t be like that, I was just messing around” Annemarie turned around and walked out of the room.
“What is up with her?”Laura asked. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it at all.” Tristan said, noticing they were the only ones left in the room, two minutes before the start of the lesson.
“What is this?” Laura pointed at a piece of paper on the table. “Did she just leave it behind?” Tristan took the piece of paper and read its content.
“Once again, congratulations! You are the biggest loser in our school year. If you are looking for your little loser friend, come to the old training hall. I’m sure she feels lonely right now… If you don’t want anything to happen to her you better not tell that stupid teacher of our little game. See you soon <3”